CT Jewish Ledger • August 13, 2021 • 5 Elul 5781

Friday, August 13, 2021 5 Elul 5781 Vol. 93 | No. 33 | ©2021 jewishledger.com

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The Temple Mount

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INSIDE

this week

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | AUGUST 13, 2021 | 5 ELUL 5781

10 Opinion

15 Briefs

17 Crossword

18 Kolot

19 What’s Happening

Plot Change............................................................................ 5 Three Israelis set off for Nigeria to film a documentary on a disconnected and lesser-known Jewish community there. And then they were arrested and thrown into prison for weeks.

Loyal Friends.......................................................................... 5 The first Central America Forum for Israel also marked the third anniversary of Guatemala’s Israel Friendship Law, which requires that schoolchildren learn about Israel and its historical relations with their country.

Arts & Entertainment.......................................................... 8 Actress Hannah Einbinder of the hit HBO Max dramedy ‘Hacks,’ loves being Jewish…which she also finds at least partially responsible for her ever-present, sometimes crippling, sense of anxiety.

In Memoriam.......................................................................11 Ruth Pearl, a child survivor of the “Farhud” pogrom in Iraq, was thrust into international attention in 2002 after Al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan kidnapped her son, Daniel Pearl, and executed him nine days later.

19 Torah Portion

20 Obituaries

21 Business and Professional Directory

22 Classified

ON THE COVER:

The network of tunnels beneath the Temple Mount has been the subject of much mystery and controversy, but the cisterns – some of which are linked to biblical sources – are just as fascinating. Plus…Jonathan Tobin explains why support for ‘freedom of worship for Jews’ on the Temple Mount is so controversial. Pictured on the cover: “The Cave Beneath the Holy Rock, Jerusalem” by Carl Haag, 1859. Pencil and watercolor on paper. (Wikimedia Commons) PAGE 12 jewishledger.com

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UP FRONT

CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | AUGUST 13, 2021 | 5 ELUL 5781

How three Israeli filmmakers wound up becoming the story in Africa

Central America unites in show of solidarity against antisemitism

BY JOSH HASTEN

BY ELIANA RUDEE

(JNS) Three Israeli documentary filmmakers arrived home safely from Nigeria at the end of last week, after what they described as 20 “hellish days” detained under inhumane conditions by the government’s Department of State Services (DSS) security agency.

Rudy Rochman, David Benaym and Noam Leibman had set off for the African country as part of their “We Were Never Lost” documentary project aimed at telling the stories of disconnected and lesserknown Jewish communities around the world.

However, after several days of filming members of the Jewish Igbo people in the southeastern city of Ogidi—they consider themselves to be descendants of the biblical tribe of Gad—a group of heavily armed and masked DSS agents forcibly took the three into custody on July 9, seizing their passports and cell phones, and taking them in for questioning.

The agents said the matter would take about 15 minutes. It wound up turning into 20 days of imprisonment.

Rochman, a Jewish-rights activist with several hundred thousand followers on social media who came up with the idea for the documentary and was serving as its producer and host, told JNS that local bloggers had put the group in danger by publishing articles erroneously claiming that the filmmakers were political or security figures, or perhaps even Mossad agents who arrived from Israel in order to help the Biafra separatist movement take on the Nigerian government.

In the late 1960s, Nigeria and a secessionist state called the Republic of Biafra, which had declared its independence, fought a bloody nearly threeyear civil war in which Biafra (supported

by Israel at the time) lost an estimated two million civilians—mainly due to starvation as a result of a Nigerian blockade—along with 100,000 soldiers. Biafra lost the war, and the area was reabsorbed into Nigeria.

In recent years, tensions became high again between the two sides with the founding of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatist movement led by political activist Nnamdi Kanu. Rochman explained jewishledger.com

that Kanu recently returned to his Igbo Jewish roots.

On June 27, Kanu was arrested by Interpol in the Czech Republic and extradited to a Nigerian prison for trial, accused of starting an anti-government uprising.

Despite a public statement on the “We Were Never Lost” platform explaining that their presence in the country was purely cultural, the blog posts seemed to draw a connection between Kanu, the activities of the separatists and the arrival of the filmmakers.

“Our goal was to document the lives of the Jewish community and to share their stories, struggles, experiences, aspirations and to bring their story to the world,” said Rochman, emphasizing that they were not on a political trip.

However, he said, the Nigerian government “sees a blur of everyone who is Igbo and connects them to Judaism, Israel and to the separatist movement.”

’I wanted to keep it at the diplomat level’ On their first day in detainment, Rochman said the group was placed in a cell at the local area police station where the interrogations began. The day they were taken in, a Friday, led into Shabbat, and the filmmakers begged for some grapes, which they used to recite Kiddush (the Shabbat blessing over wine), and some crackers, which they used as bread for their Shabbat “meal.”

Early on Saturday morning, the men recount being led out of the prison at gunpoint and placed into a van, where they were taken on a nine-hour drive to the capital city of Abuja. Despite being told that their passports and phones would be returned to them upon arrival, and that the Israeli ambassador was waiting for them in the capital, it wasn’t the case.

Instead, Rochman said that the gunmen forced them to take off their rings and shoes, and “they threw us into a circular cage, where you could walk maybe three or four steps in each direction. It was pitchblack and reeked of urine, with bottles of

urine still there from former prisoners.

There were cockroaches and mosquitoes, and we slept on the floor. I used my jacket as a pillow. It was like that for an entire week.”

For the first six days, the group survived on bread and crackers, without showering and with daily interrogations, thinking that perhaps this would be their reality for years.

On the sixth day, Benaym, the project’s field producer, who suffers from immunosuppression due to a past illness and was unable to take his daily medication since it was in their hotel, wasn’t feeling well and was unwillingly taken to a local hospital.

He told JNS that “leaving my friends behind was extremely hard. I kept telling them, ‘I’m not going; I’m not leaving you guys.’ But they told me, ‘You have to—you have to talk to our families and the ambassadors to make sure everybody knows. And they said you have to be healthy, so you have to go.’ ” After treatment at the hospital, Benaym, who also holds French citizenship, was released to the French Embassy on the condition that he be transported back to the police station daily for interrogation.

While under the custody of the French, Benaym was able to use the opportunity to work towards the release of his colleagues and friends. He opened a line of communication with the three families and the various Israeli, French and U.S. embassies/consulates (Rochman and Leibman are dual Israeli/U.S. citizens; Rochman is also a French citizen) to coordinate a strategy.

As a veteran freelance journalist (formerly with i24 News), Benaym encouraged all parties to refrain from providing the media details of the ordeal.

He explained that he didn’t want further misinformation spread, which would only jeopardize their release. “I wanted to keep it at the diplomat level,” he said.

Back in prison, Rochman and Leibman were allowed kosher-food delivery from the local Chabad House once a day, even though Rochman said that on several

(JNS) The Guatemalan president and regional Parliamentarians convened virtually on July 29 to display a united front against antisemitism and celebrate ties with the Jewish state.

At the inaugural Central America Forum for Israel, the leaders issued a joint declaration calling for a united stance against surging global antisemitism, including support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, expressing solidarity with the State of Israel following its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza and urging for more decisive action against Hezbollah.

The forum also marked the third anniversary of the proclamation of Guatemala’s Israel Friendship Law, which institutes that Guatemalan schoolchildren learn about Israel and its historical relations with the Republic of Guatemala.

Earlier this year, Guatemala’s Congress adopted the IHRA definition, and the country’s Parliament demonstrated strong support for Israel during the most recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza, passing Resolution 042021 condemning Hamas for its rocket attacks against Israel.

Ahead of the forum, president of the Israel-Guatemala Parliamentary Friendship League, Fidel Reyes Lee, told JNS, “This is a window of opportunity to present to the world the vision of this region, united by ties and a common history.”

He underscored the particular importance of the Republic of Guatemala as the historical leader in matters of diplomatic relations with Israel, maintaining that “this relationship can be multiplied and reproduced at the Latin American level.”

Parliaments, he further explained, are playing an increasingly important role in diplomacy. “This has been shown by the Guatemala Israel Parliamentary CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

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Nigeria CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

occasions, food was withheld. On the seventh day, they were given a bucket of water to pour over their heads and finally given a change of clothes.

The two, however, became more nervous after the interrogations stopped on day nine.

Describing the experience, Leibman, who was the film’s director, told JNS, “I was definitely losing my mind at times—weeks in a blank room with no phone, computer, books, magazines or anything to do. Rudy definitely helped me keep my composure.

That man can handle any situation thrown at him.”

On the 10th day, they were moved to a different “cage” with other prisoners, who Rochman says were working as informants for the authorities in an attempt to extract information from the pair. At this point, they were allowed visits from Israeli Chargé D’Affaires Yotam Kreiman and Rachel Washington, a representative of Deputy Chief of Mission Kathleen FitzGibbon of the U.S. Consulate General in Nigeria.

Over the next 10 days, the young men remained in custody under similar horrible

conditions as the relevant bodies worked to secure their freedom. On day 20, the three were transported to the airport, and after their airline tickets were scanned, were given back their passports and cell phones, and put on a flight to Turkey, where they took a connecting flight back home to Israel.

’We won’t be able to create the episode we envisioned’ Rochman believes that the main forces who helped secure their release were his parents, who he said “managed to get everyone involved from businessmen to politicians on the Israeli, American and French side, going up to [Emmanuel] Macron, the president of France, up to U.S. Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken, along with Israeli businesspeople in Africa.”

He added: “Everyone cared. It was clear people were trying to do things even when we felt helpless.”

A day after arriving in Israel, the group paid a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem to thank God for their safe return.

Rochman said, “For us, it’s difficult to sleep at night. For me, personally, from the overstimulation—where you go from seeing

nothing, doing nothing for weeks in a very dark place, and all of a sudden there is light, you can breathe outside air—it’s almost if you are on an adrenaline rush at night, and it’s hard for us to sleep.”

Leibman acknowledged that since they were detained after only several days of filming, they won’t be able to produce the full documentary as they had hoped. “After being forced to leave Nigeria, we won’t be able to create the episode we envisioned, but I think this incident has brought a much-needed wave of interest and attention to the Igbos from world Jewry,” he said.

Nevertheless, the filmmakers insist that they will continue their “We Were Never Lost” project. According to Rochman, they will start filming in other countries shortly, taking added precautions and aiming to work completely under the radar.

“I’m still as motivated, and even more so about the documentary,” said Benaym. “As a journalist, we never want to become the story; it’s not our goal. The second that we became the story, we knew that something was going to go wrong. So our goal is to put the focus back on these communities, and make sure that we never become the story again.”

Guatemala CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

Friendship League, the largest of its kind, which has to date brought together 82 deputies and promoted the relationship between the two nations in Congress, such a instituting the Israel-Guatemala Friendship Day. Beyond diplomacy, added Reyes Lee, “Israel is a benchmark for development and industrialization, for democracy and freedom in this important region, despite resource limitations and scarcely 70 years of national independence. In contrast, Central America, which is characterized by its richness and biodiversity, as well as two centuries of independence, has not yet reached the level of human development enjoyed by the population of Israel. Therefore, there is still much to do so that Israel becomes the best commercial partner for this region, and so that we are able to reach development agreements that benefit both peoples economically, politically and culturally.”

Organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), the Center for Jewish Impact, the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, the Guatemala-Israel Friendship League and the Jewish community of Guatemala, participants included senior parliamentarians, religious leaders and communal figures from Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, the United States and Israel.

‘Education a crucial tool in fighting antisemitism and bigotry’

L TO R: DAVID BENAYM, NOAM LEIBMAN AND RUDY ROCHMAN IN NIGERIA. (CREDIT:“WE WERE NEVER LOST”)

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The forum occurred in the context of rising antisemitic hate crimes, including physical attacks and vandalizations of synagogues.

Organizers reported an unprecedented rise in online racist abuse directed at the Jewish people and the State of Israel, with Israel’s very existence being questioned.

Roberg Singer, chairman of the Center for Jewish Impact, maintained that in Central America, however, general antisemitism is “considerably low and almost non-existent, especially in the countries that participated in the forum.”

“There is a genuine affinity for Judaism stemming from the evangelical [Christian] beliefs that have taken hold throughout the region,” he told JNS. The few instances of antisemitism in the region “seem to be either remote or come from countries like Venezuela that provide material and political support to explicitly antisemitic and antijewishledger.com

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Israeli organizations like Hezbollah.”

During the forum, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid emphasized, “We stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against global terrorism. One key step is banning Hezbollah, all of Hezbollah, and I am thankful for those who have taken the step and call on every country to follow suit.”

Lapid thanked Guatemala for its historic support for Israel, as well as the forum’s participants from across Southern, Central and North America, noting, “We are grateful for the recognition of Jerusalem as our eternal capital. It was an honor to open the embassy of Honduras in Jerusalem alongside President [Juan Orlando] Hernández.”

He also spoke of the deep cooperation between Israel and countries of Latin America, and of his pride that Israel had been able to share its innovations in agriculture, water, health care and education, training thousands of people from South America through the Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV program.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei echoed, “We declare Hezbollah to be an enemy of the State of Guatemala and hope we never receive any investment which might come from groups or countries aligned with Hezbollah.”

He also spoke of the historic friendship between the Jewish and Guatemalan

peoples, and of the strong bilateral ties that date back to Israel’s earliest days. He expressed appreciation to Israel for the aid it provided to Guatemala after the Eta and Iota hurricanes last year, as well as the vaccines the country received from Israel that have been used to inoculate medical staff against COVID-19. He reaffirmed his commitment to remembering and educating about the Holocaust.

Further reflecting on Guatemalan support for Israel, Singer noted, “As someone who has dedicated much of [my] professional life to Jewish education, it brings me great joy to know that the Guatemalan educational curriculum will incorporate such a pivotal moment in Jewish history. Education is a crucial tool in fighting antisemitism and bigotry, both of which we see growing exponentially in Europe and North America.

We believe that many other countries in the region recognize the threat of antisemitism and will likely follow Guatemala’s example.”

Other speakers highlighted the shared values of self-determination, freedom and democracy underpinning Israel’s relationships in Central America and reinforced alliances in the region.

“This forum is a celebration of the strong relations between Israel and Central America and of how far we’ve come,” said Singer.

“Central American countries supported

ANA LUCRECIA MARROQUÍN DE PALOMO, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE CONGRESS OF GUATEMALA; ALEJANDRO GIAMMATTEI, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GUATEMALA; FIDEL REYES LEE, PRESIDENT OF THE GUATEMALA-ISRAEL FRIENDSHIP LEAGUE. SOURCE: SCREENSHOT.

the establishment of the State of Israel, a bond between peoples that lasts until today. For Jews, this is a reminder that even with everything that is happening, we are not alone, we have allies who unequivocally stand for Israel and fight against antisemitism. For Central American

countries, it is an affirmation of a special relationship centered around shared JudeoChristian values and a chance to solidify a relationship that has produced tangible humanitarian and economic benefits. But, most importantly, they know that they are in the right by being firm allies of Israel. “

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Hannah Einbinder on ‘Hacks’ fame, her Jewish identity, and rocking out to ‘V’ahavta’

H

BY MOLLY TOLSKY

annah Einbinder has been taking a lot of walks. Aside from the many tasks that come with being nominated for an Emmy, her main job these days is, as she puts it, “not letting my crippling anxiety ruin my life.” Her greatest salve has been walking it off, sometimes for hours.

“The key is this: If I look like I’m in physically good shape, I’m not well,” she says.

Einbinder is, professionally speaking, doing quite well. The 26-year-old standup comedian turned actress recently scored a nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her role as Ava Daniels in “Hacks,” HBO Max’s dramedy about a legendary comedy diva (Jean Smart) and the 25-year-old “canceled” comedy writer who gets shuffled off to Las Vegas to liven up her set. She’s been called a “breakout star” and a “young comic on the cusp.” But via video call,

tell me about her bat mitzvah, she warns me, “Get ready for this.” The year was 2008. The theme was “Hannah Einbinder’s First Annual Friendship Awards,” and it was, indeed, structured as an awards ceremony.

“The stars were out that night on the pink carpet,” Einbinder says, gleaming. “My dad’s friends all pretended to be paparazzi, and all my 13-year-old weirdo friends were severely uncomfortable being photographed.” In true inclusive L.A. fashion, her friends took home awards (in the form of plastic trophies) that night, from “funniest friend” to “best eyes” to “coolest hair.”

She also took the main event — chanting Torah — very seriously, despite being a “notyet-medicated hyperactive kid beyond all belief.” Her parents requested the rabbi give her a shorter Torah portion because getting her to sit down and study anything was such a tremendous effort at the time.

“But I loved it. I gave it 110%,” Einbinder recalls. “I was kind of obsessed with singing in shul. I’m like V’ahavta, this is my jam. Let’s f—ing rock.”

Einbinder was raised in Los Angeles, where her family belonged to Temple Isaiah on Pico Boulevard, a synagogue that defines itself as “at the intersection of tradition and innovation,” and which the comedian describes as a “super hippie L.A. temple, incredibly inclusive and cool and queer and diverse.” (She says this while holding her pointer and pinky finger in the rock-on sign.) “For me, Judaism has EINBINDER PREPARES FOR HER 2008 BAT MITZVAH. always been music and dance (VIA @HANNAHEINBINDER ON INSTAGRAM) and art and love and all of these really amazing, positive things.”

Growing up, she often Einbinder stresses to me that these objective visited family on the East Coast to celebrate wins do not make her anxiety disappear. the High Holidays, and did Shabbat with Like many before her, she connects some challah and grape juice — noting “it wasn’t of that anxiety with the fact that she is Jewish. anywhere near shomer Shabbos.” Still, it “I think there is something to the idea that wasn’t just the culture of Judaism that drew in everything can be taken away from you, just Einbinder. like that, which feeds into the idea that in a “I’ve been religious since I was a child. I self-loathing area of consciousness, everything have had a personal connection to God since I should be taken away from you,” she says. was a kid,” she says.

“And it’s, you know, hell. But again, I’m Her belief in what she calls “the big H” (as walking.” in, you know, Hashem) is a departure from Luckily this won’t be her first experience the rest of her family, which includes her of awards show pressure. When I ask her to sibling Spike Einbinder, a fellow comedian.

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But the concept of a higher power — and spirituality in general — was always around.

Both her parents, comedian Laraine Newman, an original cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” and comedy writer Chad Einbinder were in Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I think they especially wanted to give [the concept of a higher power] to me young because they felt that, much like the origins of Judaism, it was a way to structure life,” Einbinder says.

If Judaism was one of the languages her family spoke, comedy was the other mother tongue, equally formative and rich.

Unsurprisingly, Einbinder’s parents started sharing the great Jewish comedians with her at a very young age. Funny people like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Joan Rivers, who provided at least some of the inspiration for Smart’s character in “Hacks,” Deborah Vance.

“It was so much about getting a laugh out of my parents, that was the affirmation,” Einbinder says of her childhood. “It wasn’t grades, or athleticism, or really any of that. It was laughs.”

But despite “indoctrinated,” as she puts it, in humor growing up, she had no plans to pursue it professionally. It wasn’t until college, at Chapman University in Orange County, that Einbinder fell into improv and later the standup comedy scene. She’s been open about the somewhat tumultuous path she took to get there after being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and spending years as “a highly medicated teen.”

“In college, I was taking a lot of Adderall and smoking weed every day, constantly,” she recalls. “For several years of my life, I was in an altered state. I was not myself. I still had a tiny bit of me, but it was probably like 90% drugs, 10% Hannah.”

That all shifted when Einbinder was on a film set one day and a guy (whom she thought was cute) told her that she was funny, suggesting she try out for the school’s improv team. Someone else proposed she take a day off Adderall to see if it would help. Long story short: She made the team; she stopped doing drugs; she got a chance to try standup while opening for Nicole Byer’s campus show; she realized “improv is for nerds, this is where it’s at.”

Making the transition from standup to acting in “Hacks” was terrifying.

“I was so worried that I would f— it up.

And so worried, almost until the last week of shooting, honestly, that I was not honoring the vision of [creators] Paul [Downs], Lucia [Aniello] and Jen [Statsky], despite constant affirmation,” she says. “They were so lovely

and supportive, and my demons were on call 24 hours a day, just blocking any sort of goodness that seeped into my conscious mind.”

You wouldn’t know any demons were afoot on set when watching Einbinder as Ava on screen. She exudes the perfect Gen Z elixir: cocky, oversharing, scorned bisexual vibes with a healthy dose of self-resentment and pluck.

Einbinder gets most sincere with me when talking about her Jewish identity and what it means to her now as an adult. She’s wearing her signature Star of David necklace, the one that can be seen in pretty much every photo taken of her, and which she wore during her recent appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” I ask if it’s an aesthetic choice or something deeper.

“I think it’s both,” she responds. “I think it’s gorgeous, and I also think that, based on various antisemitic ideas about what a Jew looks like, it’s important to make it very clear that we can be anything; we are everything.”

Einbinder has fine red hair — not the boisterous dark curls often used to portray Jewish identity, especially in Hollywood — and she reveals that a lot of the antisemitism she’s experienced, especially in college, came from people assuming she wasn’t Jewish and therefore confiding their sinister thoughts to her.

Antisemitism is one of the many reasons that Einbinder stays off Twitter, the platform where her character in “Hacks” made a joke in poor taste, leading to her career’s temporary plummet.

“When you tweet about antisemitism, or really anything Jewish, the Nazis find you on there,” she says. “It’s not like I couldn’t deal with the messages. I was just like, I’m outta here. What does this do, really, for me? Thus far, not a lot of Nazis on Instagram finding me, so that’s cute.”

Einbinder posted about the rise in antisemitic attacks in the country last December, a poignant message accompanied by a menorah with candles lit for the sixth night of Chanukah. That same menorah sits on a bookshelf behind her while we talk.

“It’s a tough time right now, so it’s been really about reaching out and making new friends and connecting over this thing that we share that is unequivocally a part of us, whether you observe or you don’t,” she says of her present-day connection to Judaism. “I think of it in my everyday life as my safety.

The people I’m safe with. [I’m] trying to create that environment for my friends and family, and trying to keep my eyes on the streets, jewishledger.com

EINBINDER AND JEAN SMART IN “HACKS.”

HASSLE FREE LIVING There’s no place like

(ANNE MARIE FOX/HBO MAX)

so to speak, making sure that I’m educating and stage presence. Adult Einbinder watches myself around what’s going on and speaking along with me, her hand over her mouth in out against it. I don’t see any other option, shock and delight. We get one more shot of the personally.” budding performer, an extreme close-up with Her face brightens when talking about a direct address to the camera, her freckled the connections with fellow queer Jews face filled with pride. she’s made, especially during the pandemic, “I’m Hannah Einbinder,” she says. “Thank especially online. you and goodnight.”

“To have people who I feel like I can relate to on both of those levels at the same time is This article first appeared on Alma. like … a Jew? Dayenu. A queer Jew? Baruch Hashem,” she says.

As we’re signing off, Billie Eilish promotes her new album Einbinder shares with me a video that she was sent the to Israelis, and draws social media ire day before. She holds up her phone to the Zoom screen, (JTA) — Pop star Billie Eilish provoked a wave of angry alerting me that what criticism on social media after posting a short video I’m about to see is “fully online promoting her new album to Israeli fans. psychotic.” What appears “Hi Israel, this is Billie Eilish, and I’m so excited is young Hannah, maybe that my new album, ‘Happier Than Ever,’ is out now,” nine or so years old, hair she says in a clip posted to her Tik Tok, the blog pulled back to reveal ears Israellycool reported Sunday. she hasn’t grown into yet.

The video was one of several that Eilish posted to Her bold child-newscaster fans in different countries. voice announces, “Hi, we’re browser. here live on the scene at Pro-Palestinian social Spencer’s bar mitzvah. Let’s media users appeared have a few people talk to ya! to criticize Eilish for Come right this way.” recognizing Israel as a state.

She proceeds to “@billieeilish its interview her parents, “occupied palestinian land” BILLIE EILISH attendants at Spencer’s not israel,” wrote Ahmed (KEVIN MAZUR/ GETTY IMAGES FOR celebration. Her mother Nour.

IHEARTMEDIA) wishes Spencer a “happy Others used the bar mitzvah.” Her father opportunity to criticize Israeli policy toward the offers some show business Palestinians. technique on the fly — hold Wrote Dania: “hi israel im billie eilish and i’m blah the microphone a little blah blah” well hi tf billie eilish i’m a palestinian that lower — before joking that doesn’t have the right to see my country again and if he came to the event to i go there i’d live in fear of being bombed or killed. get some good contacts think before you speak @billieeilish #billie #Palestine” for photographers and “Happier Than Ever,” the 19-year-old’s second videographers. album, was one of the most anticipated pop releases of Even at that age, the year.

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AUGUST 13, 2021

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OPINION

Do they even know what “genocide” means?

BY RAFAEL MEDOFF

A

new poll claims that 22 percent of American Jews believe “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” That would be alarming—if they actually know what genocide is. But do they?

There is reason to suspect that as the word has become common place in public discourse, its meaning has been diluted and compromised. The unexpected ways in which the term “genocide” often is used today suggest it is no longer necessarily understood the way its originator intended.

The word “genocide” was coined by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1944.

Lemkin was haunted by the failure of the international community to act against Turkish officials involved in the slaughter of more than one million Armenians in 19141918. He believed that to galvanize a more effective response to future atrocities, a new word was needed to label such a unique type of crime.

Lemkin took his inspiration from George Eastman, who invented the word “Kodak” because he needed a short, unique, and easy-to-pronounce name for his camera.

Lemkin’s efforts to popularize the term “genocide” were crowned with success in December 1948, when the United Nations adopted its Genocide Convention, an international treaty criminalizing genocide.

It defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [sic], racial or religious group, as such.”

Over the years, pundits and even some scholars have occasionally used the term “genocide” rather loosely, as if it’s interchangeable with “war crimes” or “ethnic cleansing.” It’s not.

For example, the war crimes committed by the Syrian government, such as its use of chemical weapons against its civilian opponents, do not constitute an attempt to destroy a particular national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This fact does not make those crimes any less heinous, or any less worthy of a forceful international response.

But that is not what Lemkin intended the word “genocide” to mean.

U.S. government officials have made matters worse by sometimes refusing, for political reasons, to apply the genocide label when they should. Recall the almost comic lengths to which some leaders went to avoid acknowledging the Armenian genocide, as when President Barack Obama invoked the Armenian term for the slaughter, “Meds Yeghern,” but would not say it in English.

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(President Joe Biden finally acknowledged it earlier this year.)

As the genocide in Rwanda unfolded in 1994, Clinton administration officials debated how best to respond. Susan Rice, who was director of African Affairs for the National Security Council, argued against calling it “genocide” on the grounds that, as she put it, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] elections?”

In the spring of 2003, human rights groups began using the term “genocide” to characterize the mass slaughter of non-Arab blacks in Darfur by Sudanese governmentsponsored Arab militias. It took the George W. Bush administration until September 2004 to publicly concur. According to The New York Times, the 16-month delay was due in part to the fact that the administration was “concerned that threats and punishments against Sudan would antagonize the Arab world.”

Consider, too, how the word has been distorted in recent popular discourse.

Anti-abortion activists frequently cry “genocide.” Ben Crump, the attorney in some of the recent police shooting cases, is the author of a book called “Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People.”

Oklahoma Native American activist Casey Camp Horinek says pollution of wells in her tribe’s territory is “environmental genocide.”

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) recently claimed America is threatened by “cultural genocide,” while his colleague Rob Bishop (R-Ut) has charged that “the ideas behind the Green New Deal are tantamount to genocide.” And a Minnesota professor has claimed that black-on-black shootings

KEITH LANCE/GETTY IMAGES

of the public.

The younger generation is particularly susceptible to such rhetorical excesses.

Social media have been flooded in recent weeks by wild anti-Israel accusations from cultural celebrities, including the invocation of “genocide” by Roger Waters of the rock group Pink Floyd, social media star Mia Khalifa, and the actor Mark Ruffalo (although he later backpedaled). Others, including popular singer Dua Lipa and Canadian musician The Weekend, used the only slightly less incendiary term “ethnic cleansing.”

Impressionable young people pay attention to what their cultural icons are saying. It may not be a coincidence that in the new poll about Israel, the percentage of

Over the years, pundits and even some scholars have occasionally used the term “genocide” rather loosely, as if it’s interchangeable with “war crimes” or “ethnic cleansing.” It’s not. constitute “genocide from within.”

This freewheeling use of the term “genocide” in situations that do not meet the definition undermines the public’s understanding of what the term really means. It would not be surprising if the word has become little more than a casual synonym for injustice in the minds of a part

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respondents who were aged 18 to 34 was 24%—almost identical to the number who said Israel is guilty of genocide.

Ultimately, then, the problem with the poll may be that the “genocide” question assumed that all the respondents understand what “genocide” means.

Imagine if, instead, the question had

briefly explained what it was talking about—something like: “Genocide means ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic racial or religious group’—do you think Israel is doing that to the Palestinians?”

It is highly unlikely that 22% of American Jews would have answered “yes” to such an obviously false allegation. Even many of those who are not well educated on the subject understand that “destroying” means wiping out, or at least significantly reducing, the targeted population, while the Palestinian Arab population has increased dramatically since Israel’s creation in 1948.

It may well be that a small number of American Jews are becoming more extreme in their criticism of Israel. But a casual embrace of poorly-understood language is not necessarily evidence of a serious trend in Jewish public opinion.

This article was first published in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles ( July 14, 2021).

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about American Jewish history and the Holocaust.

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IN MEMORIAM Ruth Pearl, mother of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, was 85

BY RON KAMPEAS

(JTA) — Ruth Pearl, who dedicated the latter part of her life to preserving the legacy of her son Daniel, a journalist who was murdered in Pakistan, has died at 85.

Pearl, who suffered from a lung ailment, died at her Los Angeles home on July 20.

On Jan. 23, 2002, Pearl woke up with a premonition that her son, then 38 and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was in peril, according to an account in The Washington Post. In an email, she asked her son to assure her that he was safe. She never heard back.

At that very moment, Daniel Pearl had been lured into a trap: Expecting to meet a source, he was kidnapped, and nine days later beheaded on videotape. Daniel Pearl was in Karachi to report on the actors and structures that brought about the 9/11 terrorist attacks several months earlier.

“My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish,” were among his final words.

Ruth and Judea Pearl sought to reconcile the privacy they craved to cope with their towering grief with the need to preserve the legacy of Daniel Pearl’s passions: music (he was a skilled violinist), journalism and being Jewish.

They launched the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which brings journalists from Muslim majority countries to the United States to work at news outlets and sponsors concerts. The Pearl Project at Georgetown University advances investigative journalism; its first investigation was into Daniel Pearl’s murder. Its conclusion: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who remains captive in the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay, carried out the killing.

Judea Pearl has said that Ruth Pearl was proudest of the 2003 book she edited, I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. She solicited essays from some of the bestknown Jews of the time, including Elie Wiesel, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Edgar Bronfman.

Ruth Pearl was born Eveline Rejwan in Baghdad. In 1941, as a five-year-old, she hid out with Muslim neighbors during the Farhud, the massacre of 179 Jews in the Iraqi capital. The persecution that Arab militants aimed at Iraqi Jews helped shape her views.

“Dehumanizing people is the first step to inviting violence, like Nazism and fascism,” she said in testimony delivered to the Shoah Foundation of the University of Southern jewishledger.com

RUTH PEARL LISTENS AS PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH SPEAKS TO THE MEDIA AFTER MEETING WITH JEWISH COMMUNITY LEADERS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, DEC. 10, 2007.

(MATTHEW CAVANAUGH-POOL/GETTY IMAGES)

California.

When she was older, Pearl helped smuggle Jews to Israel and then immigrated herself, serving in new country’s Navy.

Along the way she changed her name to Ruth. She met her husband at the Technion, and after graduation they moved to the United States, where she worked as a software developer.

In January, the Pakistan Supreme Court ordered the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the sole figure involved in Daniel Pearl’s murder who was convicted, devastating the Pearls. The U.S. government says that Saeed remains a wanted man.

A lower court last year had ordered the British-born Saeed’s release, and the Pearls lost their appeal in the Supreme Court.

In a video appeal, Ruth Pearl explained to Pakistanis why they hoped to keep Saeed in jail.

“There’s not a single day that we don’t miss our son,” she said.

Along with her husband, Pearl is survived by two daughters; Daniel Pearl’s wife, Mariane; and five grandchildren. One of the grandchildren, Adam Daniel Pearl, was born after his father’s killing.

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AUGUST 13, 2021

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49 cisterns tell the story of the destru

BY NADAV SHRAGAI

(Israel Hayom via JNS) Like a well-kept secret, the cisterns of the Temple Mount are concealed, barred and padlocked by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. In ancient times, the cisterns refreshed pilgrims arriving at the Temple. A few originally functioned as shaft graves or quarries from which stones were carved to build the Temple, filling with water only years later.

According to archaeologists’ calculations, to transport 26,417 gallons of water from the Gihon Spring 2,624 feet to one small cistern on the Mount would have taken at least 1,300 donkey trips. Most of the cisterns on the Mount are considerably bigger, able to contain hundreds of thousands of gallons; water reached them mainly through ancient channels. Rainwater, which was absorbed by the ground of the Temple Mount, also helped fill the cisterns. Research points to the existence of 49 cisterns on the Mount, as well as 42 channels that carried water to them.

Some also served as hiding places prior to the destruction of the Second Temple.

While the Temple has been destroyed, the cisterns remain, and can help tell its story and the story of its ruin, which we mark today, July 18, Tisha B’av. The vast majority appear to be empty. A few have been equipped with sensors and alarms. Even Israel’s security forces can only approach most of the cisterns in rare emergency situations. Members of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement even had a plan to refill the cisterns with water imported from Mecca to make the compound more sacred to Muslims.

Only by walking around the Mount is it possible to get a more tangible impression of the cisterns. For years, I would visit two of them. The first, which dates back to the First Temple, has been locked for 10 years and is not part of the guided tours of the area. Its entrance was uncovered in 2012, between

paving stones of a Herodian-era drainage ditch that links Siloam Pool to the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

The walls of the large cistern are covered in yellowish-brown plaster characteristic of the First Temple period. The discovery of the cistern challenged the established belief that in the First Temple era Jerusalem’s only water source has been the Gihon Spring. The cistern branches out toward the east, toward the Temple Mount compound, near the location of the Museum of Islam. But that part is blocked, like the rest of the cisterns.

The other cistern I’ve visited lies a little more to the north and does not enter the Temple Mount. Archaeologist Eli Shukron, who discovered both cisterns, thinks that it was a hiding place for a family that lived in the city 2,000 years ago, and that they ate their last meals there, fearing that the rebels would steal their food.

Josephus Flavius’ book “The Jewish War” describes how in the weeks prior to the destruction of the Temple, the rebels would ambush the population of Jerusalem and murder and torture women, children and the elderly as part of their great food theft. The finds at the bottom of the cistern correspond chillingly with Josephus’s narrative. Pottery vessels containing traces of food were found there, along with a small clay lamp that would have provided only enough light to allow the family to see their food without being discovered.

A new book by journalist and Temple Mount researcher Arnon Segal, “Habayit” (“The Home”), attempts to create a “virtual” visit to the cisterns. Segal, who has been writing a weekly column about the Temple Mount in Makor Rishon for the last 10 years, devotes a sizable portion of his book to the Temple Mount cisterns.

His documentation goes back to the golden

age of research on the cisterns in the 19th century.

Segal explained that at that time, “Jerusalem was a weakened, sleepy city, far from the awareness of the world and the bloody conflicts that characterized the focus on it starting in the 20th century. In short–a paradise for the research pioneers. This is why most of the information about the cisterns we have in the 21st century is based, oddly, on the sketches [by] people in the 19th century, mainly the findings of Charles Warren and Conrad Schick, two of the most diligent mappers of that century.”

But Warren and Schick weren’t the only ones. Ermete Pierotti, an engineering officer in the Sardinian Army who arrived in Jerusalem after being chosen to serve as a consultant on refurbishments to the Temple Mount, was another.

Pierotti was appointed city engineer by the Ottoman governor of the city, and since he handled the city’s water systems, the mysteries of the Temple Mount were open to him.

Pierotti’s encounter with the “Well of Souls” that was supposedly dug beneath the Dome of the Rock is one of his more intriguing ones, mainly because even now it is unclear whether or not that cistern actually exists.

Q: What is the Well of Souls?

Segal: In the Foundation Stone, there is a cave carved out to which 14 steps lead down, and there is a large marble slab set on its floor that supposedly covers the cistern. Because according to Islamic tradition, the marble slab covers the opening to hell and the souls of the dead buried under it, it was called the ‘Well of Souls.’ The Muslims avoid opening it. The Muslim tradition about that cistern draws on the power of the Jewish tradition of the Foundation Stone, which midrashim say is the foundation of the world. Our sages see the Foundation Stone as a kind of stopper that closes the chasm underneath it, lest it come back and inundate the world like the ancient flood.

Q: And Pierotti went inside?

YOUNG ISRAELI BOYS PLAY IN THE WATER OF THE SILOAM POOL AFTER WALKING THROUGH HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL DURING A VISIT TO THE CITY OF DAVID NATIONAL PARK, ON JULY 21, 2019.

(HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90)

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A: Not even he was allowed to open the marble slab that seals the cistern. He got in through a side opening.

Q: And what did he find?

A: Pierotti wrote that he found a large space, and if he was exact, this is of major significance, because the cave under the Dome of the Rock is full of important Jewish history. According to the main approach [of] Jewish sages, which Maimonides among others espoused, in the time of the First Temple, the Ark of the Covenant was stored in a ‘deep

DUTCH ARCHAEOLOGIST LEEN RITMEYER IN ONE OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT CISTERNS, FROM ARNON SEGAL’S BOOK “HABAYIT” (THE HOME).

and twisting concealment’ beneath the Holy of Holies. According to tradition, as well as numerous researchers, the Holy of Holies is located where the Dome of Rock is today.

Unless he was making things up, Pierotti effectively identified the existence of a major underground space at the Well of Souls, a space that until then had been considered the stuff of legend.

Security officials took pictures

The Well of Souls has made headlines twice in the past decade. The first time, in the spring o 2015, was when the Waqf replaced the rugs at the Dome of the Rock and in the cave beneath the Foundation Stone. This exposed the floor of the structure, and it was photographed. On of the photographs shows the marble slab tha might cover the opening to the Well of Souls.

The second time was in 2017, after the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement carried out a terrorist shooting at the Temple Mount compound that left two police officers dead. The police closed the area off and conducted careful sweeps to ensure that no other weapons were hidden on the Mount. A large contingent of police and Border Police raided the offices of Temple Mount employees sent ropes down cisterns that hadn’t been opened since the 19th century, and surveyed numerous structures.

Some of the cisterns were photographed, and security officials shared their documentation with the Israel Antiquities Authority. The Waqf claimed that forces had also searched the cave under the Dome of the Rock. Was the marble slab opened? No security officials are volunteering an answer.

In any case, the Well of Souls is only one of the 49 cisterns research has identified on the jewishledger.com

uction of the Temple, and much more

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s,

Mount. Researcher Rivka Goren has identified four cisterns as primitive shaft graves, of the kind used to bury the dead until the end of the third millennium BCE, long before the Temple Mount was built.

Another cistern, No. 8, known as the “Great Cistern,” is the largest and can hold more than three million gallons. It was documented and illustrated by William Simpson in 1872.

“Benjamin Mazar claimed that it was a cistern mentioned in Jewish sources that was used as a main water source by pilgrims in the days of the Temple,” said Segal. “According to Mazar, the daughter of Nehunya, who was in charge of supplying water to pilgrims in the Second Temple Era, might have fallen into it.”

Segal points out that Dutch archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer believes that the Great Cistern was also one of the sources of the stone used to build the Temple. “He thinks that most of the large cisterns on the Temple Mount started out as underground quarries, and only after the quarrying stopped were they plastered and used to collect water,” he says.

Segal raises a few more interesting questions about the cisterns: Is Cistern No. 5, at the south of the Mount, the one dug in the Second Temple Period that provided water to Ezra, as researcher Ben Zion Luria believed?

The Mishnah says that the curtain that separates the “Holy” from the “Holy of Holies” was submerged in this cistern, and professor Joseph Patrich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology thinks it provided water for the bath where the priests would wash the feet and hands of pilgrims.

Another intriguing one is No. 11, named after the Hellenistic Acra fortress, which Simon the Hasmonean destroyed. The Acra, hated by the Jews of Jerusalem, was designed to force them to worship pagan gods in the heart of the Temple. Researcher Joshua Schwartz was the first to link the Acra to the cistern, but it is not a certainty.

“Most Israelis,” said Segal, “Know the Temple Mount as a place of tensions and conflict. They remember it exists only when the constant conflict that envelops it flares up.

But the Temple Mount can be so much more than that, and tell a story that is far beyond the current conflict, a story that exposes the earliest roots of the Jewish people, and hope for its future.”

Nadav Shragai is a veteran Israeli journalist.

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

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Why is support for ‘freedom of worship for Jews’ on the Temple Mount so controversial?

BY JONATHAN S. TOBIN

(JNS) Whatever motivated Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to speak of Israeli security forces and police acting to maintain order on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount after Arab disturbances while also “maintaining freedom of worship for Jews” at the sacred site, it was a first.

Bennett’s statement, made on Tisha B’Av (July 18, 2021)—the day on the Jewish calendar that commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples that existed on the Mount—was an eye-opener for a number of reasons.

But it came in the context of what appears to be a shift in policy by the new government in that, for the first time since the city was unified in 1967, it is acknowledging that Jews are being allowed to pray at the holiest place in Judaism.

After an illegal Jordanian occupation that lasted from 1948 to 1967, Israel took control of the Temple Mount when it unified Jerusalem during the Six-Day War. Israeli rule meant that for the first time in its modern history, there was complete freedom of worship at all the holy places in Jerusalem. Prior to 1948, the British—and before them, the Turks—had maintained a status quo that established Jews as second-class citizens with respect to prayer at many holy places. During the Jordanian occupation, Jews were forbidden to pray at the Western Wall, let alone the Temple Mount.

But the one exception to that rule after June 1967 was on the Temple Mount where Jews were, in theory, allowed to visit, but forbidden to pray. Then Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan decided, in a gesture intended to help keep the peace, to allow the Muslim Waqf to maintain control over the Temple Mount. Those Jews who did visit were often harassed

by Arabs, including police, who were vigilant against any behavior that might be construed as prayer.

That was a policy that was not challenged by any Israeli government.

Dayan’s surrender of the Temple Mount has been criticized bitterly over the years, not least because it allowed the Muslim religious authorities to engage in vandalism on the site when they undertook construction projects that essentially

trashed the treasure trove of historical artifacts that existed underneath mosques built on the site of the two temples.

The ban on prayer was maintained because Israeli governments feared that Palestinian Arab leaders would use any gesture towards acknowledging the Mount’s holiness to Jews, as well as to the Muslims who worshipped at the mosques there, to justify violence. Since the beginning of the conflict a century ago, leaders such as Haj Amin el-Husseini, the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas have attempted to gin up violence and hate by claiming that the Jews are planning to blow up the mosques.

Palestinians have consistently treated any acknowledgment of Jewish rights to the Mount as an intolerable insult to all of Islam—an unreasonable stand that has nevertheless been supported by the rest of the Arab and Muslim world. Even the supposedly “moderate” Abbas hasn’t hesitated to play that card, vowing that the “filthy feet” of Jews would not be allowed to defile Jerusalem’s holy places during the so-called “stabbing intifada” in 2015 and 2016.

This incitement was largely accepted

by Netanyahu as a reason to maintain the status quo. He not unreasonably believed that the alternative was a bloody religious conflict that would undermine Israel’s efforts to normalize relations with the rest of the Arab world and provide fodder for the Jewish state’s critics in the West.

That decision was easy to stand by as long as the Israeli public was largely indifferent to Jewish rights on the Mount.

That was backed up by the opinion of some in the Orthodox world that held that Jews should stay off the Mount since the exact location of the Temple’s Holy of Holies was unknown and thereby avoid profaning a place that only the High Priest was allowed to enter while it still existed.

But in recent years, more support for the rights of Jews to pray on the Mount has been building, especially among the rightwing and religious parties.

It appears that some Jewish prayer has been going on in the last two years.

In 2019, there was a report that some Jews were praying aloud there regularly in a minyan conducted openly without police interference. But the abridged informal services being held did not involve participants wearing prayer shawls or tefillin, so it somehow escaped much notice. But once Israel’s Channel 12 news reported the policy shift last month, it was

enough to prompt violence from Arabs.

At this point, it remains to be seen what the implications of that shift and Bennet’s public expression of support for “freedom of worship for Jews” on the Mount—words that never passed the lips of Netanyahu during his 12 years in power, despite his being labeled as a hardline right-winger in the international press— will be.

Whatever the cost he must pay for having said those words, Bennett cannot take them back without doing incalculable damage to himself and Israel.

This dispute is dismissed by some as an unnecessary conflict that is harming Israel’s security merely to satisfy the wishes of extremists. But the Palestinian claim that Jews have no rights on the Temple Mount is inextricably linked to their unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish presence and sovereignty anywhere in the country.

That Abbas and his “moderates” claim there were no Temples on the Mount or the historical nature of the Jewish claims to this land isn’t merely rhetoric that enables them to compete with Hamas. It goes to the heart of their long war against Zionism that they still refuse to renounce.

Those who are still trying to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution that the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly made clear it has no interest in pursuing need to understand that peace can’t be built on the denial of Jewish rights, especially in Jerusalem.

Israel has no desire to interfere with the mosques on the Temple Mount or stop Muslim (or any) worship there.

Those who circulate this lie, whether among the Palestinians or their American cheerleaders, like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), are opponents of peace, not people working for co-existence.

The world’s tolerance for Palestinian intolerance and antisemitism that finds expression in a denial of Jewish rights to the Temple Mount has helped enable the conflict over Israel’s existence to linger on long after it should have been abandoned by its foes. By taking a position on the Temple Mount, Bennett has done something that should have been done by his predecessors decades ago. Having chosen to take a stand on the issue, he dare not retreat from it lest he justify his opponents’ belief that he hasn’t the right stuff to maintain his principles or his government.

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Briefs Report slams social-media giants for ‘failing to act on antisemitism’ (JNS) A new report by the Center to Counter Digital Hate (CCDH) revealed that five major social-media companies failed to act upon 84 percent of antisemitic posts on their websites, despite promising to double down on antisemitism. Researchers from the non-governmental organization examined 714 racist anti-Jewish posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok that were published between May and June, reported NPR. The posts were viewed collectively 7.3 million times, and though they were flagged by the internal systems of the social-media companies, the five platforms did not act on the posts.

The report showed that the companies failed to take action on 89 percent of socialmedia posts that included antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic and so-called Jewish world domination.

The platforms also did nothing about 80 percent of posts that mentioned Holocaust denial, and 70 percent of posts with images promoting neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

Facebook was the worse among all the companies by failing to act on 89 percent of antisemitic posts on its website. Meanwhile, it was discovered that TikTok has only banned five percent of accounts that directly target Jewish social-media users.

“The study of anti-Semitism has taught us a lot of things … if you allow it space to grow, it will metastasize. It is a phenomenally resilient cancer in our society,” CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed told NPR. He claimed that the media platforms in question have been “unable or unwilling” to take action against antisemitic posts.

“Tech companies are consciously giving a free pass to anti-Jewish hatred and the increasing threat to the Jewish community,” said the CCDH. “Social-media companies must do better. Platforms must support, hire and train moderators to remove this hate, and those platforms must be held accountable if they fail to remove this hate.”

Ben & Jerry’s franchisees call for company to rescind Israel decision (Jewish Journal via JNS) Several U.S. Ben & Jerry’s franchisees have sent a letter to the company calling on them to rescind their July 19 decision to stop doing business in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The letter was signed by franchisees in Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and St. Louis, among other major cities, that operate 30 stores jewishledger.com

and generate $23.3 million in combined revenue. “There is a danger that the pursuit of social justice will descend into political correctness or result in the adoption of overly simplistic solutions by people who share a single view of the world that misconstrue complex problems in which multiple claims of justice are implicated,” the letter states.

Moreover, the boycott decision comes with serious financial consequences, the letter continues.

“The decision that has been made to terminate the contract with Ben & Jerry’s licensee in Israel not only distorts the situation on the ground–it has imposed, and will continue to impose, substantial financial costs on all of us,” the letter states. “More importantly, the controversy your recent actions have brought upon our local businesses has had an adverse effect on the value of our independently owned franchises and investments,” the franchisees state, adding that their respective families and communities “have shamed us personally for doing business not just with a company that draws controversy, but with one that continues to consider the calculated negative affect on its franchisees as acceptable collateral damage.”

They conclude the letter by stating: “Those who feel strongly about Israel that they want to boycott it or some part of the territory it administers are free to do so. They cannot, however, do that at our expense. We believe this decision needs to be re-examined and withdrawn.”

Maryland will review contracts with Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever (JNS) Maryland is joining a list of states examining its relationship with the icecream maker Ben & Jerry’s, as well as its parent company, Unilever, after the company announced last month that it will no longer sell its products in what the company deemed “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” which includes the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem. Maryland Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith wrote in a letter on Aug. 2 that the state will abide by Gov. Larry Hogan’s 2017 anti-BDS executive order and review the state’s contracts with Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever. “ … In October of 2017, Governor Hogan reaffirmed the State’s commitment through the issue of Executive Order 01.01.2017.25, which ‘prohibits all executive branch agencies controlled by the governor from entering into a procurement contract with a business entity unless it certifies that it will, for the duration of its contractual obligations, refrain from [a] boycott of Israel,’ ” stated Wobensmith’s letter.

“The state will review state contracts to determine whether Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever, have an existing contract with the state of Maryland and the state will respond accordingly.”

Wobensmith’s letter was addressed to Baltimore Jewish Council executive director Howard Libit and Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington executive director Ron Halber, who on July 23 wrote a joint letter to Hogan citing the executive order in light of Ben & Jerry’s actions, saying they believe it to be BDS. In his letter, Wobensmith cites various levels of cooperation between Maryland and Israel, including Israel’s Negev Desert region becoming Maryland’s 19th “sister state” in 2016 to further promote partnership between the two locations.

Germany may prosecute over a dozen more Nazi war criminals (JTA) – As Germany prepares to put a 100-year-old man on trial for Nazi war crimes, public prosecutors in several German states have announced that they are investigating more than a dozen other suspects. Most of the cases involve concentration camp guards who may be charged as accessories to murder following the precedent-setting conviction of Ivan Demjanjuk in Munich in 2011. Demjanjuk was found guilty as an accessory in the murders of nearly 30,000 Jews in the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

According to German news reports, trials are already set to begin this fall in two cases: A 96-year-old woman will appear before the Itzehoe Regional Court in Schleswig-Holstein, and the 100-year-old man is due to stand trial at the Neuruppin Regional Court in the former East German state of Brandenburg. Meanwhile, nine investigations are ongoing and there are six more preliminary probes. There is no statute of limitations for murder and accessory to murder.

Thomas Walther, an attorney who represented co-plaintiffs in the Demjanjuk trial and reportedly will do the same in this trial, said in a recent interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper that his clients, Holocaust survivors, are just as old as the accused and have never given up hope for justice.

After the indictment of the 100-year-old man was handed down earlier this year, the vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, told RBB broadcast news that “for the aged survivors … this trial is also an important example that justice knows no expiration date and that the prosecution of SS perpetrators must not come to an end despite their old age.”

The defendant, whose name has not been, is accused of being a knowing and willing accessory in 3,518 murders at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp, outside Berlin, where he reportedly was a guard from 1942 to 1945. He allegedly was involved in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942 and assisted in the murder of

other prisoners with the poison gas Zyklon B.

Florida set to ban Unilever from state contracts if Ben & Jerry’s boycott stands (JNS) The state of Florida notified Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s icecream, on Tuesday that it has 90 days to cease its “boycott of Israel” or face a ban on contracts and investments with the Sunshine State. The move is in response to the July 19 announcement that the icecream maker will stop selling its product in areas it calls “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” which includes the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem.

It comes after Florida state officials held talks with Unilever’s investor-relations department on July 28 and received an indication that “the parent company has no current plan to prevent Ben & Jerry’s from terminating business activities in Israelicontrolle

Israeli gold medalist Artem Dolgopyat can’t get married at home (JTA) – Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat is not only making headlines around the world for winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Dolgopyat, 24, who immigrated from Ukraine at age 12, is engaged but not allowed to be married in Israel because he is not Jewish according to traditional Jewish law. Only his father’s side of the family is Jewish. His case has added fresh fuel to the fire in the ongoing battles over religious policy in the Jewish state, as well as the situation of the many Israelis like Dolgopyat.

Israel offers automatic citizenship to anyone with one Jewish grandparent, but Israel’s Chief Rabbinate says only those with a Jewish mother are Jewish. The Chief Rabbinate also controls marriage registration for Jews in Israel and recognizes only Orthodox Jewish marriage.

Israel does not offer civil marriage and technically prohibits Jewish weddings conducted outside of the Chief Rabbinate’s auspices. In practice, that means hundreds of thousands of Israelis with non-Jewish mothers, many of them from the former Soviet Union, cannot marry in Israel.

Israelis considered non-Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate can be married abroad and have that marriage recognized by Israel.

Dolgopyat’s case, however, has brought the issue of marriage restrictions to the fore in Israel, where most of the population supports instituting civil marriage. Israel’s recently formed government is pursuing a slate of reforms to religious policy, though civil marriage does not appear to be on the table.

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Widow thanks Olympics for event honoring Munich massacre victims (JNS) An official memorial ceremony was held in Tokyo for the Israeli Olympic athletes who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The event took place at Israel’s embassy in Japan on Aug. 1. Among those who attended were the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike; family members of the 11 victims; and Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It took place days after the opening ceremony of the Olympics on July 23, when a moment of silence was held for the first time ever for those who were killed in the attack by the Black September Palestinian terror group.

At the memorial on Sunday, Ankie Spitzer, the widow of murdered Israeli fencing coach Andre Spitzer, thanked Bach for the recognition. She said it was a “glorious moment” to “finally realize that our 11 loved ones were recognized as members of the Olympic family–that they were no longer ignored because they were Jews and Israelis.”

Bach said at the memorial: “We know that no ceremony and no memory can ever fill the void left by those whose lives were taken so violently. With these acts of remembrance, we wanted to honor their memory, while also attempting to close the wounds of the past.” Numerous campaigns over the years called on the IOC to publicly recognize and pay tribute to the victims of the Munich massacre. In 2016, a memorial ceremony was held for the first time during the Rio Games, but not as part of the opening ceremony.

Jewish Voice for Peace linked to anti-Israel ‘intifada rally’ in Brooklyn (JNS) The anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) supported a pro-Palestinian rally in Brooklyn, N.Y., over the weekend of July 23, where hundreds of protestors glorified uprisings against Israel. In an Instagram story by StopAntisemitism. org and later shared on Twitter, the New York chapter of JVP posted a photo from the rally on Saturday and thanked the Palestinian-led community organization Within Our Lifetime (WOL) for organizing the “powerful” demonstration. The rally was held in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags while chanting “Free Palestine,” and “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it.” Rallygoers marched behind three large banners that read “Globalize the intifada,” “Zionism is terrorism” and “We will free Palestine within our lifetime.” Other slogans included, “Mobilize the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

WOL said on its website that the need to “globalize the intifada comes from the 16

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urgent need to defend our lands, resist our oppressors and break free from the genocidal grip of U.S. imperialism and Zionism.” The organization said it has planned “actions every week” until Sept. 17.

GW is first American university to offer master’s program in Israel education (JNS) George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development is now offering a master’s degree program in Israel education. The private university in Washington, D.C., is the first major educational institution in the United States to offer the two-year, part-time master’s program that “brings together cohorts of Jewish educators, leaders and changemakers to learn new methods and techniques for Israel education,” according to a news release by the school. The release also stated that “through vision-based learning and practical educational strategies, each cohort explores the historical and contemporary politics, culture and geography of Israel to develop educational experiences that emphasize the centrality of Israel to Jewish education, civilization and life.” The Marcus Foundation donated $2.7 million to fund the program with additional support from the Center for Israel Education. George Washington University has more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students who identify as Jewish, according to the school.

A compromise to avoid evictions in Sheikh Jarrah might be forming (JTA) – Israel’s Supreme Court has proposed a compromise that could avert the contentious eviction of dozens of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. The neighborhood, also known in Hebrew as Shimon HaTzaddik, was home to Jewish families before Jordan captured the area in the 1948 war for Israel’s independence.

Jordan then gave the Jewish families’ homes to Palestinians who were displaced from Israel and prohibited from returning.

Now an Israeli group that obtained the original Jewish families’ ownership rights is trying to evict the Palestinian families from the homes. The neighborhood has been the site of legal battles and protests rooted in the competing broader Israeli and Palestinian claims to eastern Jerusalem.

Protests over the pending evictions helped spark the conflict in May between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

At a hearing Monday, Aug. 2, Justice Isaac Amit suggested that the Palestinian families stay in the homes as “protected tenants” who are legally protected from eviction for life, according to The Jerusalem

| AUGUST 13, 2021

Post. In exchange they would have to pay a small amount of rent to the Israeli owners. “What we are saying is, let’s move from the level of principles to the levels of practicality,” said Amit, according to Haaretz. “People must continue to live there and that’s the idea, to try to reach a practical arrangement without making various declarations.”

But the Israeli owners are demanding that the Palestinian residents formally recognize the Jewish residency rights. The Palestinian families worry that accepting the deal would constitute relinquishing their claims to the property in future potential court battles. The hearing ended inconclusively, and the judges asked the Palestinians’ attorneys to submit a list of people who are eligible for protected tenancy.

Biden picks Obama alum as White House liaison to Jewish community (JTA) – After months of speculation, President Joe Biden has chosen Chanan Weissman as White House liaison to the Jewish community. Weissman, 37, was President Barack Obama’s Jewish liaison in the last months of his presidency. Sources close to the White House on Thursday confirmed the choice. Weissman’s LinkedIn profile says he has since May been director of technology and democracy at the White House’s National Security Council. It’s not yet clear if he will maintain that position as he assumes the role of Jewish liaison.

Jewish groups have been pressing the White House to name a Jewish liaison and a State Department antisemitism monitor as antisemitism has spiked in recent months.

The Anti-Defamation League praised the appointment, although the White House had yet to formally make the announcement on Thursday afternoon.

Weissman first came to the role in April 2016 after a long stint working in the office of the antisemitism monitor, who was at the time Ira Forman. He returned to the State Department with Donald Trump’s assumption of the presidency in 2017 as a career hire, not a political appointee, and remained in the department in various capacities through April.

A graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, he has also worked at the Pentagon on Middle East issues. He is from Baltimore, where he graduated from Beth Tfiloh, a Jewish community day school.

In upset, pro-Israel backed candidate wins key Democratic primary (JTA) – Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman, came from behind in the polls to win a critical Democratic primary in a Cleveland area district with a substantial Jewish population, with considerable help

from a mainstream pro-Israel political action committee. Brown, who won the election in Ohio’s 11th District, was facing Nina Turner, a former state senator who co-chaired the 2020 presidential run of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the flagbearer for the party’s left.

Brown in her victory speech recalled her visit to Israel, including to towns on the Gaza Strip border. “You walk within a few feet of a bomb shelter, you can appreciate the vulnerability of a state, and that has given me the understanding of the U.S.Israel relationship and I thank my Jewish brethren,” she said in video posted on Twitter by Jewish Insider. A crowd of Jews and African Americans burst into cheers.

In her concession speech, Turner targeted outside money that backed Brown, although Turner also accepted money from PACs. “We didn’t lose this race, evil money manipulated and maligned this election,” Turner said. That prompted a tweet from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Jewish Democrat who is senior in the party and who backed Brown. “@ninaturner proving that support for @shontelmbrown was a #mitzvah,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Turner was well known in the district and had a national profile as a leading progressive spokeswoman and thinker.

Early polls showed her with a substantial lead, and she was a prodigious fund-raiser, garnering close to $6 million to Brown’s $2.5 million. Sanders campaigned for her in the district, and she had the backing of the “Squad,” the grouping of six progressive lawmakers led by Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y. Brown, who is also chairwoman of the county’s Democratic Party, was favored by the party’s centrists, and notably had the backing of Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the African American kingmaker who was pivotal in gaining Joe Biden the party nomination and then the presidential election. The political action committee affiliated with the Democratic Majority for Israel, a mainstream pro-Israel group, backed Brown from the outset, in part because she had established ties with the substantial Jewish community in the district – Brown has visited Israel – but also because Turner was associated with the Israel-critical wing of the party. There are over 20,000 Jews in the 11th.

Turner would not commit to a position on the boycott Israel movement, which at least three members of the Squad have endorsed. DMFI pumped $2 million into the race. Also endorsing Brown was the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the nonpartisan PAC, Pro-Israel America.

Brown is almost certain to win the November special election in this heavily Democratic district.

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THE KOSHER CROSSWORD AUGUST 13, 2021 “Settings” By: Yoni Glatt

Difficulty Level: Manageable

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ANSWERS TO AUGUST 6 CROSSWORD

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Across 1. Queen to be, perhaps 5. Create a carpet 10. Last words, for short 14. Hook-billed wading bird 15. Like the walls at Wrigley Field 16. American footballs players wear a lot more of these than Australian football players 17. Setting of “Blossom” and the Museum of Tolerance 19. “___ Enchanted” (Hathaway film) 20. Erev 21. Gru’s youngest daughter in “Despicable Me” 22. It’s above Shift 23. Got off track 25. Matzoh dish

26. What the Nile did once, miraculously 27. Lacking heat?

30. Rates of gaits 33. Washingtons 34. Lab eggs 35. Irritate but good 36. Setting of “The Golden Girls” and The Cuban Hebrew Congregation 38. Eins plus zwei 39. Kind of verse 40. One-named rock star who was big in the 1990s 41. Pitcher Hershiser and others 42. Jon who’s a brain behind much of Star Wars and Marvel’s success 44. “Fame” singer Irene

46. “Big Fish” star McGregor 47. Yemenite flatbread 51. From the Arctic 53. Fragrant plant 54. Film femme Farrow 55. Major sponsor of terrorism 56. Setting of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and the Tree of Life- Or L’Simcha Congregation 58. Serve 59. In ___ (developing) 60. “Peter Pan” dog 61. Write this clue like this he would 62. Argentina’s Eva 63. Anti-Israel “Squad” member from Minnesota

Down 1. Accumulated 2. Where 1-Down is situated to this clue 3. More like 61-Across 4. Secretive org.

5. Move like Jell-O 6. Made square 7. Was in pain 8. Winner’s signs 9. Harris and Helms 10. First game in a series 11. Setting of “The Wire” and Yeshiva Ner Yisroel 12. Like many on Shabbat, in a way 13. Pre-1917 despot

18. Performs perfectly 22. Slices of history 24. “... butterfly, sting like ___” 25. Notable Brak 27. Albuquerque coll.

28. Adventurous Knievel 29. Speaker’s stage 30. TA’s boss 31. Opera with the King of Egypt and Ethiopians 32. Setting of “The Drew Carey Show” and Fuchs Mizrachi School 33. Common American tree 36. “And the ___ man shall be brought down” (Is. 5:15) 37. Hosp. ward for critical cases 38. Make like Chagall

40. Omnivorous mammal 41. Colgate rival 43. Kigali is its capital 44. Famous Fidel 45. Brie of “Mad Men” 47. Alma follower 48. Father of Aharon 49. Big name in insurance 50. Hor ___ (Aharon’s resting place) 51. What Mr. T feels for a fool 52. Ice cream cookie 53. “I’ll ___” (“Try me”) 56. Baby seal 57. Classic card game

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KOLOT

‘The Family Historian’ in a time of ignorance

BY BOB LIFTIG

I

was born just after World War II, on the cusp of a new generation. I am now one of the few who, in fact and in distant memory, was held in the arms of my immigrant great grandparents.

Today, when those who want to flatter me try, they call me “The Family Historian.”

My great-grandparents, grandparents, and my parents are long since buried.

Like a tombstone, I remain to tell their stories.

Sometimes I get calls from the sixth or seventh generation of related Jews in America who are – choose one: part Irish or Scandinavian orb Italian or part “other.”

These kids almost always need help on extra credit projects – especially related to their genealogy. They almost never call out of a personal passion for family history.

The conversation usually goes like this: “The only family I haven’t traced is yours. I’ve already been to County Cork and seen our family castle. I took a side trip to Greenland and sat in a 1,000 -yearold sauna – the one my ancestor, Eric the Red, used before he discovered America.

Then, I did the whole Scottish thing. I even went to the Games up in Edinburgh and met the chief of Clan McDonald. But all he wanted to talk about was how the Campbells massacred his family in 1692.

Who cares? Boring! So, I told him my Mom is part Campbell; and he wouldn’t talk to me anymore! All I have left is your family. What can you tell me about the Bernsteins?”

“I think you mean ‘Greensteins.’”

“Whatever. Did they do anything famous?”

Kids’ attention spans are short these days, so I have to pick and choose which ancestor to tell them about.

I decide to talk about my greatgrandfather, Sam Greenstein, of Spring Street, New Britain, in the 1890s, who lived long enough to hold me in his arms.

“Sam was known in the family as: ‘The Fisherman’; ‘The Greatest Storyteller on Earth – But Always Fish Stories,’ ‘The Funniest Fisherman in New Britain – But He Only Joked About Fish,’ ‘The Man Who Never Made A Lot of Money Because All He Ever Did Was Fish.”

Sam died in 1949, age 91, when I was two. He fell through a hole he cut in the ice of his favorite pond in the dead of a Massachusetts winter, and wasn’t seen 18

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again until March – when the ice broke.

He had been living with his daughter in Agawam. He left two fish near his icefishing hole – Sam Greenstein’s last gift to his family.

That’s how the story was told to me, anyway, and that’s how I tell it.

I often sense at this point I am about to lose the attention of my great-great grandnephew, or my second cousin three times removed, so I bear down hard on the facts.

“Sam was born in 1858 in Vilna, Lithuania, but was actually a latecomer to America. His Uncle Ben had come to New Britain first – in 1882 – practically on the Jewish Mayflower; and had set up shop as a kosher butcher. He was soon described in the local papers as ‘a businessman of this city.’

This was a big accomplishment.

Ben brought his 20-year-old daughter, Anna, with him, but she went back to Lithuania in 1884, because she “didn’t like it here.” Back in Vilna, she married her first cousin, Sam; and, in 1886, gave birth to their first son, my grandfather, Dr. Charles Jacob Greenstein.”

Something in all of this usually stirs some interest.

“Yes,” I say. “A lot immigrants DID go back because it was so different over here.”

And. “Yes. It was accepted in those days to marry your first cousin. It was even something your parents WANTED you to do.”

When I hear, “Yuck!” on the other end, I know I’ve hooked them.

“Sam and Anna and their son Charlie didn’t get to this country until 1890 – when Sam was 32, Anna, 28, and Charlie, 4. Can you imagine all the changes they had to make? They had been used to another way of life, another government, another set of circumstances, another language!”

“Why didn’t they speak English like everybody else in the world?”

“Sam was a clockmaker, like his father; and Old Sam’s father, another Ben, who must have been born in the 1830s, was ‘The Official Watchmaker To The Czar of Russia!”

“What’s a watch? What’s a Czar?

Where’s Russia? Were they hackers?”

“Ben must have worked for Czar Alexander II, who was known as ‘one the best friends the Jews of Russia every had’ – which, trust me, didn’t mean very much.

| AUGUST 13, 2021

MEMBERS OF BOB LIFTIG’S GREENSTEIN FAMILY IN AN UNDATED PHOTO.

An assassin threw a bomb, and that was the end of Ben’s boss. Only one Jew was even vaguely implicated, but the the Jews were blamed anyway, and the locals beat them up, looted all their businesses, and a lot of Lithuanian Jews left for America – including Ben.” “What’s a ‘Jew’?”

“This happened in 1881. One year later, Uncle Ben, set up a kosher butcher shop in New Britain. Imagine how bad things must have been in Lithuania for Ben to pull up stakes, put his family on a steam ship, and travel 4,000 miles to get to a country he had never seen before. But, Ben got a foothold here in a wonderful new country and his daughter Anna and her husband Sam and their son Charlie joined him here. It was a good move because in Lithuania they were starving.”

“What’s ‘starving’?”

“There was a really bad depression going on in America in 1893; but the Greensteins managed to keep their shops going. Sam and Anna raised five children.

All but his pretty daughter, Sadie, went to law or medical schools. One son became the District Attorney for Hartford County; another son became a judge in Norwich; and my grandfather was a doctor in New Britain for almost 60 years. They knew more prosperity than any other Greensteins knew in 2,000 years. And, when the brothers were drafted into World War I, they became Army officers! In Lithuania, they would have just been cannon fodder.”

“What’s ‘drafted’?”

“The kids never forgot their parents, and supported them the rest of their lives.

Even after Anna died in 1934, Sam didn’t have to live alone in some cheap apartment.

He moved in with his daughter Sadie in Massachusetts. She took care of him until the day he died, at the incredibly old age of 91.”

“Only 91?”

“Sam never forgot his Jewish heritage.

In 1898, he established one of the first synagogues in New Britain – Beth Alom. He must have been very smart too, because he

could speak and write in several languages, and he read the American newspapers every morning.”

“What’s a newspaper?”

“Sam was known as a terrific fisherman!

And a wonderful storyteller. And a really skilled craftsman. We have one of his wall clocks, and it still keeps perfect time. Sam was a gentle man. He saw a lot of hard times, but he never gave up. He never gave in. He used his sense of humor to get through it. When he became an American in 1897, he was so happy, he danced a jig!”

“What’s a sense of humor?”

“But of all the wonderful things Sam did for his family, his biggest accomplishment was getting them out of Lithuania and getting them to the USA, so that his kids wouldn’t have to suffer. So that they could have a better life. Sam made a lot of sacrifices, and even though he didn’t know it at the time, he sacrificed for you.”

“Is this over yet?”

“Wait! I want you to say that, if Sam hadn’t been brave enough to take all the chances he had to take, you wouldn’t be here today; because Sam and his family, and a lot of your cousins, would have been killed in the Holocaust.”

“What’s the Holocaust?”

“Sam was an American Hero. You should be proud to say that Sam was your ancestor. He was grateful to become an American – and you should be proud to tell his story to everyone.”

“What’s an ‘American Hero’? I didn’t know we had any.”

“Good-bye now. I’m going to go to bed.

Hugs to your mom and dad, and to your grandparents.”

Dr. Robert A. Liftig is an adjunct professor of ethics at Fairfield University and a freelance writer.

He lives in Westport.

Readers are invited to submit original work on a topic of their choosing to Kolot.

Submissions should be sent to judiej@ jewishledger.com. jewishledger.com

WHAT’S HAPPENING AUGUST 12 – SEPTEMBER 19

TORAHPortion Shoftim

BY RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27

Lunch & Learn: As the Rabbi

“Shabbat Under the Stars” at Emanuel Synagogue

Rabbi Moshe Edelman will answer 24 often-presented questions that “cross a rabbi’s eyes” – customs, ceremonies, laws, rituals... Then, share your own queries and concerns that you’ve always wanted to share with a rabbi. Hosted by UJA/JCC Greenwich on Aug. 12, 112:301:30 p.m. For more information, visit ujajcc.org.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 14 Holley McCreary iin Concert Bring your mask and a chair to this outdoor concert featuring singer and musician Holley McCreary and hosted by the JCC in Sherman, 9 Rte 39 South.

In case of rain, concert will be held indoors. Face masks required for those not vaccinated. Reservations required. $20/members, $25/non-members. For information, visit jccinsherman.org.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19

Friday, Aug. 27, 6:00 p.m. – The Emanuel Synagogue will host “Shabbat Under the Stars” in the shul’s parking lot, on Aug. 27 at 6 p.m. Services followed by Shabbat dinner. Located at 160 Mohegan. Dr., West Hartford.

Reservations and payment needed for dinner. For information or to register, visit emanuelsynagogue.org.

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 1 “A Very Israeli Rosh Hashanah” Cooking Demo A one-hour live interactive virtual cooking class with 5-time James Beard Foundation award-winning Chef Michael Solomon and NY Times best-selling cookbook author Adeena Susan, on Sept. 1, 8 p.m. Recipes include: Halvah Gazoz and chicken with date syrup from Adeena, and salatim (a two of salads) from Michael. $10

The Rosh Hashanah You Thought You Knew

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

Dip into an inspiring and thoughtprovoking exploration of the Jewish New Year with Rabbi Tzvi Sytner. Hosted by UJA/JCC Greenwich on Aug. 19, 112:301:30 p.m. For more information, visit ujajcc.org.

Picking for the Pantry

SATURDAY, AUGUST 21 Screening of “Maktub” in West Hartford The Emanuel Synagogue will host a screening of the Israeli comedy, “Maktub,” on Aug. 21 at 8:30 p.m., in the synagogue’s parking lot, 160 Mohegan Drive, West Hartford.

Admission is FREE. For information, call (860) 236-1275.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 26 Jewish Approaches to Health and Wellness Mind says yes, body, not so much. A look at how our tradition sees both physical and mental health issues led by Rabbi Richard F. Address. Hosted by UJA/JCC Greenwich on Aug. 26, 112:30-1:30 p.m.

For more information, visit ujajcc.org

jewishledger.com

Pick apples at Silverman’s Farm in Easton on Sept. 12, 3 - 4:30 p.m.

Hosted by PJ Library and UJA/JCC of Greenwich, this event will benefit local families who use the Schoke Jewish Family Service Kosher Food Pantry. No rain date. $36/family (includes a bag for picked apples to be donated to the food pantry. For information, contact uja@ ujajcc.org.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 Keney Park Reunion Share memories of Keney Park and the North End at this reunion to be held at the park on Sept. 19 at 2 p.m.; Learn about the Keney Park Sustainability Project and tour their site with its vegetable garden beekeeping and maple syrup making. Hoted by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. $15/members; $18/non-members. For more information or to register, visit jhsgh.org.

At this time of year, we begin to think about the upcoming High Holidays and the requirement that we embark upon a process of introspection, of repentance, of teshuvah.

This leads us to think about ethics and to wonder how one gets started upon the process of becoming a more ethical person?

Where do we look to find guidance in ethical matters?

On the subject of universal ethics, I have long been guided by a passage in the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, Israel’s first chief rabbi. He speaks of two sources for ethical guidance. The first is yir’at shamayim, fear of heaven, which is a religious source. The second is hamussar hativ’i, natural ethics, by which he means the knowledge of right and wrong, which is available to all mankind, regardless of religion. Rav Kook asserts that these two sources go hand-in-hand and must be consistent with one another.

More recently, I have been reading Psychiatry and Ethics, a book by the psychiatrist Maurice Levine, that begins with a quotation from Charles Darwin’s autobiography: “I had... followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favorable areas. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views, which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.”

Levine uses this interesting habit of the father of the theory of evolution to illustrate what he considers to be a fundamental process in the development of a truly ethical person. He calls this the process of “selfscrutiny”. He writes, “A good part of a man’s ethics consists of the ways in which he copes with his temptations.” Darwin was aware of his own temptation to only recognize evidence that supported his theories and to conveniently ignore or forget facts that would undermine them. And he acted to control that temptation.

Darwin was certainly not unique in this weakness, although the manner in which he dealt with it was exemplary. We all have ideas about our projects, or about ourselves, and we all tend to pay careful attention to everything that would confirm our opinions.

And we all excel at ignoring, suppressing, forgetting, or discounting all information that might force us to reevaluate our theories or, heaven forbid, re-examine our opinions about ourselves.

As Levine puts it, one of the

fundamentals of sound ethical character is “the need to know oneself, the need to be as honest with oneself as possible, the need to avoid self-kidding.”

This week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, we encounter a mitzvah which seems to be given only to judges: “You shall not judge unfairly... you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just.” (Deuteronomy 16:19) In the mid-19th century, a rabbi named Israel Salanter began a movement designed to educate people about the importance of ethics in the Jewish tradition. That movement was known as the “Mussar Movement,” “mussar” being the Hebrew word for ethics. This movement had many leaders over the generations and continues to have a significant contemporary influence.

One of the greatest representatives of the Mussar Movement was a man named Rabbi Abraham Grodzinski, who was murdered by the Nazis in the ghetto of Kovno during the Holocaust. Rabbi Grodzinski had a problem with the above verse in this week’s Torah portion. He wondered what those of us who are not judges can learn from the injunction against taking bribes.

The martyred rabbi had an answer that is strikingly similar to the observation about ethics that Dr. Levine was able to learn from Darwin’s autobiographical note. “We all have personal interests,” writes Rabbi Grodzinski, “personal inclinations that result in misperceptions, misjudgments, and tragic moral errors. These personal prejudices are the equivalent of bribery. Our own self-interest often blinds us and distorts our judgment as to what is right and what is wrong.”

The great ethical teachers in our tradition consistently point out that, in a sense, we are all constantly acting as judges in the decisions that we make throughout even the most mundane day. And we are always subject to “bribes;” that is, to the temptations to ignore information that is uncomfortable to us, that threatens our preexisting assumptions, or that forces us to re-examine the question of whom we really are.

This brief excursion into the posthumously published writings of a saintly Holocaust victim, Torat Avraham Grodzinski, and the collection of a Jewish American psychiatrist’s lectures, Psychiatry and Ethics, helped us understand the first step for those of us who wish to initiate a process of teshuvah, of ethical selfimprovement. It may very well be what our ancient scholars referred to as “cheshbon hanefesh,” and what a contemporary thinker has aptly termed “self-scrutiny.”

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OBITUARIES BIRNBAUM Robert (Bob) J. Birnbaum, 91, of Cambridge, Mass., formerly of West Hartford, died July 30. He was the widower of Barbara (Umanoff) Birnbaum. Born in New York, he was the son of the late Paul and Mildred (Braunstein) Birnbaum. He served in the U.S. Army as a lawyer and journalist in Germany. He is survived by his loving companion Hyaline Greenberg of New York, his daughters, Margot Birnbaum of Cambridge, Carol Birnbaum and her husband Adam Manacher of Cambridge, Paula Birnbaum and her husband Neil Solomon of San Francisco; his grandchildren, Daniel, Jonathan, Jordan and Mariel; his brother-in-law and sister-inlaw David and Shelly Umanoff of Boynton Beach, Fla. GRANDE Paul Grande, 87, of West Hartford, died August 2. He was the husband of Nancy Grande. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was the son of the late Isadore and Ruth (Newman) Grande. He made his home with his wife Nancy Grande, in Connecticut, Virginia and The Villages of Florida during their 37 years of marriage. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Allan Grande and his wife Cynthia of Colchester, Sara Gavens and her husband Andrew of Niskayuna, N.Y., and Ian Grande and his husband Richard of Bloomfield; his granddaughters, Melissa Gavens, Jennifer Gavens and Molly Gavens; his stepdaughters, Robin Hirtle and her husband Russ of Granby, and Sandra Schultz and her husband Ken of West Hartford; and his step-grandchildren, Robert and his wife Mallory, and Gretchen; his sisters, Dayle Herstik of Monroe, N.J., and Helene Epstein and her husband Albert of Edison, N.J.; a niece and several nephews. He was also predeceased by the mother of his children, Sonia Berke, and his brother-in-law Lawrence Herstik.

GREENBERG Betty (Greenberg) Weiner, 100, of West Hartford, died July 29. She was the widow of Louis G Weiner. Born in Manchester, she was the daughter of the late Charles and Nellie (Kaplan) Greenberg. She is survived by her sons, Steven Weiner of Santa Fe, N.M., and Barry W Weiner and his wife Shahla of New York, N.Y.; her grandchildren, Rebecca Weiner and her husband Drake Bennett, Roya Weiner and her husband Ari Frankel, and Jonathan Weiner and his wife Ethel CohenWeiner; and her great-grandchildren, Xavier, Jagger, Poppy, Damian, and Miles.

LEVENTHAL Danielle Taylor Leventhal, 27, died August 4. Raised in Chappaqua, N.Y., she was the daughter of Eric and Jennifer (Hecht) Leventhal of Rye (formerly of Chappaqua). In addition to her parents, she is survived by her brother Alex Leventhal; her grandparents, Kelvin and Carolyn (Robinson) Hecht of Avon, and Dr. Gerald and Judi (Blumenreich) Leventhal of Scarsdale, N.Y.; Her aunts Carrie Hecht Trookman and her husband Nate) of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Robyn Leventhal of Portland, Ore.; her uncle Charles Hecht and his wife Robyn of Needham, Mass.; and several cousins.

MARGOLIS Allan H. Margolis, 93, of Wallingford, died July 28. He was the husband of Mae Margolis. Born in New Haven, he was the son of Louis and Dina Margolis. He was also was predeceased by his brother Lester, his sister Estelle Miller, and his daughter Beth Margolis. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughters, Barbara Fierman and her husband Robert, and Susan Lieff and her husband Arthur Axelbank; his grandchildren, Abigail Fierman and her husband Michael Grossman, Johanna Snyder and her husband Brian, Rachel

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Axelbank and Jake Axelbank; and his greatgrandchildren, Tyler and Jack Grossman, and Benjamin and Alex Snyder.

PASTERNACK Sally (Jainchill) Pasternack, 91, of Hartford, formerly of West Hartford, Avon and Simbury, died August 1. She was the wife of Dr. Alan Pasternack. Born in Hartford, she was the daughter of Clara and Edward, and the sister of Barbara. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children by her first husband Alan Graber: Ellen Graber Donohue and her husband Kevin of Windham; Elise Graber and her husband Bob Wood of Columbia, and Nancy Graber Pigeon and her husband Craig of Ellensburg, Wash.; her stepchildren, Aron Pasternack and his wife Kate Perri of White Plains N.Y., Steven Pasternack and his wife Margaret Skeggs of Avon, and Lisa Pasternack Plourde of N.Y.; her grandchildren, Gabriel Graber, Lucas Donohue and his wife Ashlyn, Elizabeth Sinha and her husband Rishabh, Caleb Graber–Smith and his wife Sarah Salois, Claire Pigeon, Sasha Pigeon, Rachel

Welcome and her husband Michael, Daniel Pasternack and his wife Alison Lauer, and Ben Pasternack and his wife Elizabeth Rie Sommer; her great-grandchildren, Cole, Lara, Charlotte, Amelia, Theodores, Oliver, Rowan, Ada, Lev, Elijah, Sofia and Natalie; her sister-in-law Joyce Birnbaum of Florida; and two nephews.

ZONDERMAN Irene (Harris) Zonderman, 95, of Hamden, died August 2. She was the widow of the late Louis Zonderman, died on Aug. 2, 2021.

Born in Boston, she was the daughter of the late Barney and Mary (Goldberg) Harris.

She is survived by her children, David Zonderman and his wife Patty Williams, Jon Zonderman and his wife Laurel Shader, and Alan Zonderman and his wife Cathy Busch; five grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren. She was also predeceased by her sister Annette Saltzman.

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Needed, a live-in caregiver for an elderly female home owner in Bloomfield. Duties include trash out, availability at night in case of emergency - attached apartment provided at reduced rent. Applicant must submit 3 references. Call Vivian at 860301-2066.

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CT SYNAGOGUE DIRECTORY To join our synagogue directories, contact Howard Meyerowitz at (860) 231-2424 x3035 or howardm@jewishledger.com.

BLOOMFIELD B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom/ Neshama Center for Lifelong Learning Conservative Rabbi Debra Cantor (860) 243-3576 office@BTSonline.org www.btsonline.org BRIDGEPORT Congregation B’nai Israel Reform Rabbi Evan Schultz (203) 336-1858 info@cbibpt.org www.cbibpt.org Congregation Rodeph Sholom Conservative (203) 334-0159 Rabbi Richard Eisenberg, Cantor Niema Hirsch info@rodephsholom.com www.rodephsholom.com CHESHIRE Temple Beth David Reform Rabbi Micah Ellenson (203) 272-0037 office@TBDCheshire.org www.TBDCheshire.org CHESTER Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek Reform Rabbi Marci Bellows (860) 526-8920 rabbibellows@cbsrz.org www.cbsrz.org COLCHESTER Congregation Ahavath Achim Conservative Rabbi Kenneth Alter (860) 537-2809 secretary@congregationahavathachim.org

EAST HARTFORD Temple Beth Tefilah Conservative Rabbi Yisroel Snyder (860) 569-0670 templebetht@yahoo.com FAIRFIELD Congregation Ahavath Achim Orthodox (203) 372-6529 office@ahavathachim.org www.ahavathachim.org Congregation Beth El, Fairfield Conservative Rabbi Marcelo Kormis (203) 374-5544 office@bethelfairfield.org www.bethelfairfield.org GLASTONBURY Congregation Kol Haverim Reform Rabbi Dr. Kari Tuling (860) 633-3966 office@kolhaverim.org www.kolhaverim.org GREENWICH Greenwich Reform Synagogue Reform Rabbi Jordie Gerson (203) 629-0018 hadaselias@grs.org www.grs.org Temple Sholom Conservative Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz Rabbi Kevin Peters (203) 869-7191 info@templesholom.com www.templesholom.com

HAMDEN Temple Beth Sholom Conservative Rabbi Benjamin Edidin Scolnic (203) 288-7748 tbsoffice@tbshamden.com www.tbshamden.com MADISON Temple Beth Tikvah Reform Rabbi Stacy Offner (203) 245-7028 office@tbtshoreline.org www.tbtshoreline.org MANCHESTER Beth Sholom B’nai Israel Conservative Rabbi Randall Konigsburg (860) 643-9563 Rabbenu@myshul.org programming@myshul.org www.myshul.org MIDDLETOWN Adath Israel Conservative Rabbi Nelly Altenburger (860) 346-4709 office@adathisraelct.org www.adathisraelct.org NEW HAVEN The Towers at Tower Lane Conservative Ruth Greenblatt, Spiritual Leader Sarah Moskowitz, Spiritual Leader (203) 772-1816 rebecca@towerlane.org www.towerlane.org Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel Conservative Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen (203) 389-2108 office@BEKI.org www.BEKI.org

Orchard Street ShulCongregation Beth Israel Orthodox Rabbi Mendy Hecht 203-776-1468 www.orchardstreetshul.org NEW LONDON Ahavath Chesed Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Avrohom Sternberg 860-442-3234 Ahavath.chesed@att.net Congregation Beth El Conservative Rabbi Earl Kideckel (860) 442-0418 office@bethel-nl.org www.bethel-nl.org NEWINGTON Temple Sinai Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Bennett (860) 561-1055 templesinaict@gmail.com www.sinaict.org NEWTOWN Congregation Adath Israel Conservative Rabbi Barukh Schectman (203) 426-5188 office@congadathisrael.org www.congadathisrael.org NORWALK Beth Israel Synagogue – Chabad of Westport/ Norwalk Orthodox-Chabad Rabbi Yehoshua S. Hecht (203) 866-0534 info@bethisraelchabad.org bethisraelchabad.org Temple Shalom Reform Rabbi Cantor Shirah Sklar (203) 866-0148 admin@templeshalomweb.org www.templeshalomweb.org NORWICH Congregation Brothers of Joseph Modern Orthodox Rabbi Yosef Resnick (781 )201-0377 yosef.resnick@gmail.com https://brofjo.tripod.com

ORANGE Chabad of Orange/ Woodbridge Chabad Rabbi Sheya Hecht (203) 795-5261 info@chabadow.org www.chabadow.org

WASHINGTON Greater Washington Coalition for Jewish Life Rabbi James Greene (860) 868-2434 jewishlifect@gmail.com www.jewishlife.org

The Emanuel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi David J. Small (860) 236-1275 communications@emanuelsynagogue.org www.emanuelsynagogue.org

Congregation Or Shalom Conservative Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus (203) 799-2341 info@orshalomct.org www.orshalomct.org

WATERFORD Temple Emanu - El Reform Rabbi Marc Ekstrand Rabbi Emeritus Aaron Rosenberg (860) 443-3005 office@tewaterfrord.org www.tewaterford.org

United Synagogues of Greater Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Eli Ostrozynsk i synagogue voice mail (860) 586-8067 Rabbi’s mobile (718) 6794446 ostro770@hotmail.com www.usgh.org

WEST HARTFORD Beth David Synagogue Orthodox Rabbi Yitzchok Adler (860) 236-1241 office@bethdavidwh.org www.bethdavidwh.org

Young Israel of West Hartford Orthodox Rabbi Tuvia Brander (860) 233-3084 info@youngisraelwh.org www.youngisraelwh.org

SIMSBURY Chabad of the Farmington Valley Chabad Rabbi Mendel Samuels (860) 658-4903 chabadsimsbury@gmail.com www.chabadotvalley.org Farmington Valley Jewish Congregation, Emek Shalom Reform Rabbi Rebekah Goldman Mag (860) 658-1075 admin@fvjc.org www.fvjc.org

Beth El Temple Conservative Rabbi James Rosen Rabbi Ilana Garber (860) 233-9696 hsowalsky@bethelwh.org www.bethelwesthartford.org Chabad House of Greater Hartford Rabbi Joseph Gopin Rabbi Shaya Gopin, Director of Education (860) 232-1116 info@chabadhartford.com www.chabadhartford.com

SOUTH WINDSOR Temple Beth Hillel of South Windsor Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Glickman (860) 282-8466 tbhrabbi@gmail.com www.tbhsw.org

Congregation Beth Israel Reform Rabbi Michael Pincus Rabbi Andi Fliegel Cantor Stephanie Kupfer (860) 233-8215 bethisrael@cbict.org www.cbict.org

SOUTHINGTON Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation Reform Rabbi Alana Wasserman (860) 276-9113 President@gsjc.org www.gsjc.org TRUMBULL Congregation B’nai Torah Conservative Rabbi Colin Brodie (203) 268-6940 office@bnaitorahct.org www.bnaitorahct.org WALLINGFORD Beth Israel Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Bruce Alpert (203) 269-5983 info@bethisraelwallingford.org www.bethisraelwallingford.org

Congregation P’nai Or Jewish Renewal Shabbat Services Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener (860) 561-5905 pnaiorct@gmail.com www.jewishrenewalct.org

WESTPORT Temple Israel Reform Rabbi Michael S. Friedman, Senior Rabbi Rabbi Danny M. Moss, Associate Rabbi Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler, Rabbi Educator (203) 227-1293 info@tiwestport.org www.tiwestport.org WETHERSFIELD Temple Beth Torah Unaffiliated Rabbi Alan Lefkowitz (860) 828-3377 tbt.w.ct@gmail.com templebethtorahwethersfield.org WOODBRIDGE Congregation B’nai Jacob Conservative Rabbi Rona Shapiro (203) 389-2111 info@bnaijacob.org www.bnaijacob.org

Kehilat Chaverim of Greater Hartford Chavurah Adm. - Nancy Malley (860) 951-6877 mnmalley@yahoo.com www.kehilatchaverim.org

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Holiday Order Deadlines: Holiday Food Orders Will Be Accepted Online Between: 7AM 8/19 Through 7PM on 8/23 ONLY For Pickup On Sunday 9/5 Or Monday 9/6 from 9AM - 2PM You May Place Your Holiday Food Orders On The Phone Or In Person Any Time Until 8/23 @ 7PM (This is a HARD Deadline, We Need Time To Order and Prepare!)

Meat & Bakery Orders Gladly Accepted For Holiday Pickup Days

GROCERY PRODUCTS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED FOR PREORDER FOR PICK UP AFTER 9/1 (This is to ensure smooth and timely pickups and deliveries!)

Last Day For Curbside or In-Store Pickups Of Grocery Products Will be Wednesday 9/1 (needs to be ordered by 8/29) But We Welcome You Into The Store To Shop!

Our Online Store Will Be Off Line From 8/29 through 9/8 Please Plan Accordingly Feeding A Large Group or

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